1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inkjet printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional inkjet printer is supplied ink by mounting an ink cartridge in an ink cartridge receiving unit. The inkjet printing apparatus is designed to perform printing by using a predetermined suitable type of ink, e.g., a pigment ink, a dye ink, or the like, contained in the ink cartridge. If an ink cartridge containing an unsuitable ink is mounted, a risk of clogging may increase. Therefore, it is preferable to use the ink cartridge containing the predetermined type of ink.
In a known inkjet printer, when an unexpected ink cartridge is mounted, the known inkjet printer discharges a large amount of ink in a maintenance operation, and this accelerates the ink discharge to a high speed.
In a known inkjet printer, ink that is discharged by a maintenance operation is collected by a collection unit, e.g., a waste ink tank. A porous member, e.g., a sponge, is provided inside such a tank, and waste ink is absorbed by the sponge. In this case, if the type of the waste ink is known, a total amount of waste ink is determined according to the type of the waste ink, on the basis of a discharge amount of waste ink per unit time, and a time for which waste ink should be discharged. Ink absorption ability, e.g., ink absorption rate, of the sponge is determined on the basis of these parameters. If no consideration is given to the ink absorption ability of the sponge and an amount of waste ink beyond the ink absorption ability is discharged, the waste ink may not be absorbed by the sponge and may overflow the waste ink tank into the printer, which may damage a circuit board or other portion of the printer.
If the above parameters are known, the discharge amount of waste ink per unit time can be increased to a value that is almost equal to the waste ink absorption rate of the sponge. Therefore, the discharge amount of waste ink per unit time can be set so that the time taken until completion of discharge of waste ink is made shortest, e.g., the discharge amount of waste ink per unit time is maximized, according to the waste ink absorption rate. Nevertheless, if a large amount of ink of an unsuitable ink cartridge, e.g., ink whose material properties are unsuitable is discharged, the discharge amount per unit time may exceed the maximum waste ink absorption rate, because a rate at which the ink having unsuitable material properties is absorbed by the sponge may not be assumed. The waste ink may overflow the waste ink tank into the printer and damage a circuit board or other portion of the printer.